I don’t mean to be a party pooper, but I don’t want to receive any more puppy emails.

John

This Day is Waggin’ By

From: Terence O’Reilly

To: Mondays, Am I Right? Group

Sent: Monday, April 21st, 2014 11:49 AM

Bow wow, today is moving slow! So guess what? You get three Monday puppies for the price of one!

RE: This Day is Waggin’ By

From: John Seiler

To: Terence O’Reilly

Sent: Monday, April 21st, 2014 11:49 AM

Terence,

I can see that you opened my previous email. Please stop sending me puppies. I find it highly annoying.

Under Where?

From: Terence O’Reilly

To: John Seiler

Sent: Monday, April 21st, 2014 11:51 AM

Looks like this boxer is wearing briefs!

RE: Under Where?

From: John Seiler

To: Terence O’Reilly

Sent: Monday, April 21st, 2014 11:51 AM

Are you kidding me? You sent this to me only.

Help

From: John Seiler

To: Mondays Am I Right? Group

Sent: Monday, April 21st, 2014 11:54 AM

Hey everyone,

Can you take me off this group? Terence refuses to acknowledge my emails and I can’t find a phone number for him.

RE: Help

From: John Seiler

To: Mondays Am I Right? Group

Sent: Monday, April 21st, 2014 01:29 PM

Anybody?

Throw Him A Bone!

From: Terence O’Reilly

To: Mondays Am I Right? Group

Sent: Monday, April 21st, 2014 01:31 PM

John’s making this puppy sad.

RE: Throw Him A Bone!

From: John Seiler

To: Mondays Am I Right? Group

Sent: Monday, April 21st, 2014 02:13 PM

Seriously? Nobody can take me off this group or even respond?

RE: Throw Him A Bone!

From: Cathy Armand

To: John Seiler

Sent: Monday, April 21st, 2014 02:16 PM

John, it’s just puppy photos. Please, I beg you, just go with it. It’s just part of life at TD Ameritrade.

Cathy Armand

Harassing Emails

From: John Seiler

To: Human Resources

Sent: Monday, April 21st, 2014 03:34 PM

Hello,

This is John Seiler in Small Business Finances. I have been receiving cute puppy emails from Terence O’Reilly, which I do not care to receive anymore. When I addressed this wih him, he keeps sending me more puppy emails. Can you speak to him?

Thank you,

John Seiler

RE: Harassing Emails

From: Phil Peppers

To: John Seiler

Sent: Monday, April 21st, 2014 04:10 PM

Hi John,

Are you sure you have the right name? I don’t have a record of a Terence O’Reilly working here. Can you forward me one of the emails?

Phil Peppers

I Gots To Buries My Bones

From: Terence O’Reilly

To: John Seiler

Sent: Monday, April 21st, 2014 04:11 PM

Some puppies shouldn’t go digging!

Phil Peppers

From: Corporate Offices

To: TD AMERITRADE ALL

Sent: Tuesday, April 22nd, 2014 07:29 AM

Please join us in mourning the loss of Human Resources Manager, Phil Peppers. If you have any information that you believe is relevant to the case, police are asking that you contact them immediately.

Heather Constance,

VP, North American Offices

RE: Phil Peppers

From: John Seiler

To: Terence O’Reilly

Sent: Tuesday, April 22nd, 2014 08:29 AM

What did you do?

Let’s All Paws For Phil

From: Terence O’Reilly

To: Mondays Am I Right? Group

Sent: Tuesday, April 22nd 2014 09:14 AM

Phil’s with the angels now.

Please Help

From: John Seiler

To: Human Resources

Sent: Tuesday, April 22nd, 2014 10:01 AM

Hello,

This is John Seiler. I was speaking to Phil Peppers before he passed about some emails from Terence O’Reilly. Do you have any information on him at all? I can’t even find his desk here.

Thanks,

John Seiler

RE: Please Help

From: Millie Sanders

To: John Seiler

Sent: Tuesday, April 22nd, 2014 10:59 AM

John,

I couldn’t find anything at first, but I found some old files. Terence O’Reilly died in 1999. He was killed by a pack of wild dogs.

Millie Sanders

Window Repairs

From: Heather Constance

To: TD AMERITRADE ALL

Sent: Wednesday April 23rd, 2014 03:29 PM

We’re reminding everyone in the Nashville office that window repair will be going on today in Millie Sanders’ former office, after she mysteriously fell to her death. Again, the police are looking for any assistance.

Happy Wednesday, everyone! Guess who’s run out of topic ideas? I have. So, it’s time for more ways things can get worse. I’m a big fan of sequels: The Dark Knight, Empire Strikes Back, Big Momma’s Hous……most sequels.

More Ways Your Life Can Get Worse

While viewing a solar eclipse, you cross paths with the one bird alive with the natural ability to precisely shit through a tiny hole in a paper plate.

After years of rebuilding your self-ego, you end up working in the same office with the girl in high school who nicknamed you “Pickle Tits”

You quit your job to pursue the life of an artist, but you find that you are only able to paint select scenes from the TV show “Caroline In the City” when everyone is actually crazy for “Suddenly Susan”.

Despite your best efforts at potty training, you just can’t get your daughter to understand the difference between the toilet and the aquarium.

Your tickle parties slowly turn into GOP fundraisers.

As your parole is denied and you head back to your cell, you realize that last night probably wasn’t the best time to jokingly tell the white supramicists “We can mouth kiss tomorrow!”

After a fall on your bicycle, you can’t help drinking your beer pinky out

While removing your belly button lint, you notice that you have removed a kidney

Just as you place the last brick into an inpenetrable super wall separating the U.S. and Mexico, you turn around to see the angry Rottweiler from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

As particle physicist, you spend two decades designing the world’s largest proton accelerator and just as you nervously throw on the power for its inaugural run, you see the janitor banging your wife on one of the thermocouples.

After getting home from a trip to the Apple Store and LensCrafters, respectively, you look down to discover that the iPad 2 you bought is actually a bowl of goulash. (FYI You hate goulash)

Just as you’re feeling good about yourself, somebody asks you a foreign policy question on Libya.

Just wanted to keep everyone updated with the blog. New posts have been delayed due to me getting a new job that is occupying my time right now. In addition, I’m trying to get some material published, so I have to wait until something is rejected until I give you the crap nobody wants. You so lucky!

But, let’s play another game. Leave me some questions in the comments and I will answer them using my staggeringly limited knowledge. In the meantime, just laugh at the stupid cat picture.

Hey gang. Jessie Stegner was kind enough to do another guest post for me. For those of you not familiar with Jessie, you make me sick.

Just who do you think you are?

But, I’ll give you some info anyways. Jessie is a very funny lady right here in Chicago who you can find doing improv, sketch, and making decorative canoes. I’m still fact-checking that last one, but I’ll leave it up for now.

There are certain moments in our lives we will never forget. Events that shape us and make us who we are. Moments that define us as people. For some they may be a big move, the beginning of a relationship, a career change or loss of a loved one. For me, one of those monumental and life altering events was Sierra Madre Elementary School’s sixth grade play of 1997.

The Wiz of L.A. was a comical interpretation of the The Wizard of OZ written by a few of our faculty members. It contained hilarious spoofs on Baum’s classic including the Wizard singing “The Great Pretender,” Glinda the Good Witch doing a tap dance and the Ozians (or L.A. citizens in our version) performing “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” led by a kid with a Rastafarian wig (remember, it was the 90’s). The Wiz was a highly anticipated end of the year production and the last big hurrah before graduation. It was a big deal for everyone. And I, certainly, was no exception.

Now let me get one thing straight. Even as an 11 year old, I took acting very seriously. For every school production I had a neatly organized script with post-its to differentiate scenes and perfectly highlighted lines. I attended summer musical theatre camps in which I was always put in the front row of the dances because I sang loudly and with a large smile just as instructed (unless of course it was the finale song like “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from the musical Carousel, which clearly I made the perfect somber yet hopeful expression). I had past TONY award shows recorded on VHS that I would watch and re-watch to learn choreography and lyrics of the musical segments. This was not just some hopeful kid wishing the auditors would discover a diamond in the rough. There was no rough. This was talent that had been molded. Talent that had been shaped. As far as I was concerned I was going to get a lead because, quite simply, I was the best person they had.

I was convinced that getting a role in this show meant more than what it really did. I thought that by getting a lead, it would prove that I was supposed to be an all time famous actress. That I was going to “make it.” Every professional actor I had met up until this point instilled in me how hard it was, the immense amount of rejection and lack of recognition and what an overall horrible business acting was (looking back I was clearly talking to the wrong actors; jaded ones with bad attitudes that forgot why they began acting in the first place). I knew at a young age that performing was something I wanted to spend my life doing and getting a part in this play meant I was good enough to do so.

Everything seemed to be falling into place. That is, until it was revealed how the show would be cast. Everyone interested in a certain part would sing a section of that character’s song in front of the class. Our teacher would then pick 3 or 4 who were called back for the role. THEN, in an unbelievable turn of events, the class would vote on who should play it. VOTE. Oh yes. A complete juxtaposition of every audition I had ever been a part of. All of a sudden it was no longer about talent or song execution or character interpretation (which, clearly, I had). It was about who was the most popular kid. I was shocked. I was mortified. I was pissed.

I sang for numerous parts and got called back for a few but couldn’t quite clench a role. Dorothy went to Christina who had perfectly straight hair, a miraculous hourglass figure for a pre-teen and a nose I was all too envious of. The Scarecrow went to Kenny, the good looking brunette boy that every girl had a crush on either because of his dreamy brown eyes or the fact that he was the first to have noticeable facial hair. And I’m pretty sure Jessica got the role of the Good Witch because she brought in her own tap shoes for the callback (of course someone tapping in actual tap shoes is going to look better doing it than those of us that didn’t. Sheesh).

It all came down to the Tin Man. Adrian, Kristine and I were the last ones standing. We were asked to sing and do the choreography to the Tin Man’s big number “If I Were a Rich Man” from Fiddler on the Roof (In our version the Tin Man wanted money instead of a heart. I know, comedy gold, right?). After our respective performances, the three of us were taken outside while the voting took place. As we waited, I can remember knowing my fate was sealed. When we reentered the room Adrian’s name was called. I was crushed. I held it together at the time. Just waiting for school to end so I could go home and cry alone in peace. But before I could leave my teacher called me to his desk. He wanted to give me a pep talk. It was sub par at best. I remember him half-heartedly patting my shoulder and saying something about how there would be lots of little parts with lines I would be up for. He noticed I was avoiding eye contact and said, “You’re not going to cry are you?” Being the person that I am I said, “Yea I probably am.” It seemed as this came as a shock to him, which it shouldn’t have had he seen my trapper keeper full of Dorothy pictures I spent hours downloading from the internet (literally hours, internet was so slow then, remember?) and clearly written out dance steps to the group numbers we had already learned. But he didn’t so that was the best consolation I was going to receive in Bungalow 6 that day.

When I was finally out of his sight I ran to my Dad who was picking me up from school that day. I cried harder than I ever remember crying in my entire life. Just bawling. If I could give sixth grade Jessie a hug right now I would. My Dad didn’t say a word. He just held me tight until we got to the car. I was so ashamed. Here was this thing. Here was the only thing I ever knew I wanted to do sitting right in front of me. And I didn’t get it not because I didn’t do well. It was because no boys thought I was cute and I wore vests to hide my tender and annoyingly ever-growing chest. Because I had thick bushy eyebrows and a tummy and permanent bad breath from the lack of understanding of how to get food out of my brand new braces. Maybe even partly because I took the audition too seriously. It was one of the toughest lessons a kid can learn: Life isn’t fair.

Luckily I woke up the next day and, despite my certainty, the world hadn’t ended. The play was over soon as was my time at the little school in the foothills. And then a miraculous thing happened. There was another play. And then another. Even more in high school. And college? College was spilling with opportunities. I figured out somewhere between my 8th grade performance in Kilroy Was Here and our college’s fringe festival production of Angels in America that life, no matter how unfair it is, keeps going.

I am a firm believer in everything happening for a reason. I had to not get that part to get all the others. Someone had to not believe in me to force me to believe in myself. And I had to run bawling out of the sixth grade bungalow to realize how inconsequential some things in life really are.

So, I was sitting at home on a day off, and found myself a little bored. I turned on my PlayStation 3 and opened Playstation Home when I actually intended to open Playstation Store. For those of you who don’t know, PS Home is a social networking platform where you select an avatar and a username and you can interact with other people’s avatars by chatting, playing games, etc.

One feature of PS Home is that you determine every feature of your avatar: sex, clothing, hair color, and so on. I decided to make my avatar a hot, blonde lady who is dressed to go for a jog. Once you create your character, you go to a common area that is between a bunch of buildings and in the middle of this area, is a fountain with lounge chairs and benches.

Upon entering the common area, I noticed that the ratio of male to female avatars was about ten to one, with all of them dressed like they’re on their way to a Godsmack concert. Within one minute of entering, I found myself circled by about eight of these characters while I’m trying to launch a zombie survival trivia quiz. During the quiz, a little chat window kept popping up with things like “U look HOT!!!!”, and “Dmn, I want to touch UR bobs”. Bobs not boobs. Nobody disrespects me, much less my bobs.

So I exit the quiz and decide to chat with one of the nice young men named Brazxxx1254. I would like to think that he is a devout Catholic and the 1254 is his tribute to the year that Pope Alexander IV succeeded Pope Innocent the IV, but I ‘m sure it’s just another sexual hand position which I am not privy to. Here’s a transcript of our exchange:

Brazxxx1254: Look at U grl!

Me: Thanks. He he he.

Brazxxx1254: How old R U?

Me: 23. U?

Brazxxx1254: 19

Me: Where U from?

Brazxxx1254: Texas

Me: Me 2! Where?

Brazxxx1254: Austin

Me: Me 2!

Brazxxx1254: You should come to my house.

Me: I don’t know.

Brazxxx1254: I’ll treat you good.

Me: He he he. I think you should visit me.

Brazxxx1254: I can do that.

Me: You’ll have to come between 6 and 8.

Brazxxx1254: Why? Boyfriend?

Me: No. Those are visiting hours.

Brazxxx1254: WTF?

Me: Hospital visiting hours.

There’s a couple of minutes of silence

Me: Hello?

Brazxxx1254: What’s wrong with you?

Me: Nothing.

Brazxxx1254: Y are you in the hospital?

Brazxxx1254: Work there?

Me: No. I meant there’s nothing wrong with me as a person.

Me: But I have a shattered pelvis.

Me: That’s probably what you meant.

Brazxxx1254: OMG! Are you ok?

Me: Keeping my chin up.

Brazxxx1254: How did it happen?

Me: Drunk driving accident.

Brazxxx1254: That sucks. I hpe that guy burns in h@ll.

Me: Who?

Brazxxx1254: The drunk driver.

Me: I was the drunk driver.

Me: Don’t H8.

A couple of minutes of silence

Me: You sound cute.

Brazxxx1254: I gotta go.

Me: Why? The drunk driving thing?

Brazxxx1254: Yes

Me: That’s just great. I’m trying to rebuild my life.

Me: It seemed like we had something between us.

Brazxxx1254: Sorry, but you should go to jail.

Me: I am in jail. On the inside.

Me: But no, I probably will go to jail.

Brazxxx1254: Later.

Me: Listen. I logged on to escape the pain.

Brazxxx1254: Sorry. Leave me alone.

Me: Great. Thanks for cutting my heart in two.

Brazxxx1254: Peace.

Me: In two! Just like I cut that Dodge Caravan with my Ford Taurus.

Silence

Me: I still can’t believe my old piece of sh@t got up to 120!!!

Brazxxx1254: Please stop.

Me: Ok. I’ll stop. But if you want to visit me, just ask the front desk for the drunk driver.

When you die, your life will flash before your eyes, but only the moments when you pushed when the door at your local grocery store clearly said “Pull” and that time you accidentally said something racist.

Due to the coriolis effect, when in the Southern Hemisphere, the Miller Lite Vortex bottle is still a stupid idea.

Listening to the EMT’s will not give you the confidence to complete that homemade hang glider.

The ceiling tiles above the locker room at any Curves gym can support the weight of one average-sized, masturbating, adult man. Two is foolish.

All of the fat lost by contestants on NBC’s The Biggest Loser, is the sole ingredient of Dannon yogurt.

When a group of girls in a bar yells “We’re crazy!”, they’re not crazy. The girl sitting slouched in the corner with bird droppings in her hair, licking the table as she cries, is crazy. Take her home. Fall in love. Get married. Have three children. Build a life together. Just no sudden movements.

You may have noticed a recent slow down in new entries being posted to the old blog. You didn’t? Okay. I’m gonna finish this thought just the same. My schedule has been a little different lately and the blog was the first to suffer. The second was the U.S. economy. I didn’t realize the power I wield.

In addition, I’ve been submitting material for publication and none of that material can appear on the blog until it’s 100% rejected and I learn to take “no” for an answer.

So while I wait for some responses from those big publishing fat cats while they dine on pheasant in the Hamptons, I decided to open up the old mailbag and read some questions and post the answers for everyone to read. Huzzah!!!!

So here we go:

Q: What does Brain For Thought stand for anyways? (Adam, Mt. Roscoe, WA)

A: “Brain For Thought” is a reference to J.R.R Tolkien, who described the phrase as “The most beautiful three words ever conceived”. However, he later changed his mind and gave this honor to “Cellar Door”, but this was heavily scrutinized after he went on the payroll of Jim Rosen’s Cellar Doors and Basement Repair.

A: It’s hard to foresee. Maybe as part of a Mexican standoff where a Croatian man has a knife held to a baby, perhaps the world’s smartest baby, and he demands that I stop blogging or the unthinkable happens. In that scenario, I would proabably yell “Look out behind you!”, and then run away. Or if I got some finger disease. Then I would stop blogging.

Q: When will you accept your responsibilities? I deserve that much. (Tina, the mother of your child, Tyler, TX)